Jumping on the brandwagon

Real-estate brands are now getting onto the brandwagon. How are they doing this?

Jullunder

Jogi- saab , it starts with a brand name that sounds different. Here, there are two brand propositions you can take. One is about the builder and the other is about the particular property. Brands and sub-brands emerge and stand out from the clutter in this manner. It then leads on to the terrain of font and style of branding. There is a greater degree of differentiation possible in terms of how the brand name can showcase itself. One then climbs the differentiation ladder more and more, to step out of the clutter and peek into the stratosphere of differentiated branding. This takes shape in the specific offerings of the project and the services that the builder offers. The real-estate offering is really not a product anymore. It is a service. Focusing on this aspect helps. Every product in the market today is a service. An idli at home is a product. At a five-star hotel or for that matter at a street-side eating joint, it is a service. Services are the future and products are the past.

India is perspiring and there is an anti-perspirant market out here that is big. What are the dynamics at play in this space?

Mumbai

Juhi, well put. We are a sweaty nation, for sure. This business of sweat management is a potentially huge market. India is a nation of 1.2 billion people. A sunny land with extreme temperatures. The summer, pre-summer and post-summer months are all seasons that cause sweat. India is also a nation of outdoorsy people in terms of work profiles. The country largely sweats it out in the sun, or in offices that manage with fans and no air-conditioning at large. This is an ideal anti-perspiration market. This is, therefore, a very big market for scented talcum powder and the deodorant spray, for sure. New entrants can look beyond the obvious and position deodorants’ basic functional appeal as well.This “girl-magnet” thing needs to stop. It is just too lowest common denominator-oriented. The deodorant in India is being marketed as a pheromone that is a sexual stimulant. This needs to be nudged out and brands need to move on.

Is viral marketing now dead? Kolaveri D did it. Where does viral marketing stand today?

Chennai

Parvathi, viral marketing is really all about word of mouth. This is the most powerful marketing medium there is. When Ganesh- ji started drinking milk (through capillary action) some years ago, the entire nation heard the story through viral marketing in just six hours flat. Word of mouth is quick, powerful, savage and efficient. All at once. This works to the advantage and disadvantage of the brands in question as well. Viral marketing today manifests itself through the social networking tools in the hands and pockets of everyone — Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In, Whatsapp and more. The mobile device that offers connectivity to it all is the hardware and the software is every such site that has a whole generation of young people hooked onto it. Today, all marketing is quite open source. It is about a certain degree of freedom that social networking preached initially and it is all about an entire nation of young workers adapting to it naturally. Viral marketing means that brands will have to enjoy the accolades that come from living in the realm of a viral era, just as much as they will have to face criticism and ridicule. At times, this criticism and ridicule will be found to be unfair by the brand custodian, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. In a viral era, you live and thrive by viral rules. And you die by viral rules as well.

Harish Bijoor, is a business strategy expert and CEO of Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. Mail your questions to cat.a.lyst@thehindu.co.in

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